Essential skills for pharmacy graduates reported by advanced pharmacy practice experience preceptors

Objective. To identify key business, management, and human resources skills needed by pharmacy graduates. Methods. Pharmacy preceptors were recruited for inclusion in one of four focus groups. At each focus group, participants were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and to identify key skills that new graduates need but do not have. Each focus group was audio-recorded, transcribed, de-identified, and categorized using a data dictionary. Results. Twenty-seven preceptors participated in the focus groups. Fourteen participants had a Doctor of Pharmacy degree. Participants were involved in management positions for a median of 10.5 years (range 5-21 years) and 50% (median) of their time was devoted to management responsibilities (range 20%-80%). Seven themes were identified as being most critical: communication, business skills, decision-making and time management, conflict resolution, leadership and professionalism, personnel management, and computer software techniques. Conclusion. Communication was the most prominent skill identified, followed by decision-making and business knowledge. These skills should be addressed in pharmacy curricula. Future research should focus on how to best teach these skills.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Identification of Key Business and Management Skills Needed for Pharmacy Graduates

Augustine

Slack

Cooley

et al. 2018

“…Communication, critical thinking, and collaboration were all deemed essential by preceptors. 16 Future course assessments will use a combination of broadly administered surveys and targeted focus groups to gather feedback from fourth-year student pharmacists and pharmacy preceptors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Application of a Stepwise Assessment Process for Rational Redesign of Sequential Skills-Based Courses

Gallimore

Porter

Barnett

2016

Objective. To develop and apply a stepwise process to assess achievement of course learning objectives related to advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) preparedness and inform redesign of sequential skills-based courses. Design. Four steps comprised the assessment and redesign process: (1) identify skills critical for APPE preparedness; (2) utilize focus groups and course evaluations to determine student competence in skill performance; (3) apply course mapping to identify course deficits contributing to suboptimal skill performance; and (4) initiate course redesign to target exposed deficits. Assessment. Focus group participants perceived students were least prepared for skills within the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education's pre-APPE core domains of Identification and Assessment of Drug-related Problems and General Communication Abilities. Course mapping identified gaps in instruction, performance, and assessment of skills within aforementioned domains. Conclusions. A stepwise process that identified strengths and weaknesses of a course, was used to facilitate structured course redesign. Strengths of the process included input and corroboration from both preceptors and students. Limitations included feedback from a small number of pharmacy preceptors and increased workload on course coordinators.

“…34,35 Pharmacy accreditation standards have endorsed the importance of this training: "Graduates should be able to independently identify and solve problems using critical thinking," and recom-mendations and tools to assess critical thinking have been published. [36][37][38] Competency in using information technology has become a de facto requirement for all health care professionals. Informatics training for student pharmacists should prepare them not only to meet needs regarding medication safety, but also to participate effectively in the diagnostic process and communicate with other members of the health care team.…”

Section: The New Competencies For Diagnosis Align With the Existing Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pharmacy Education Needs to Address Diagnostic Safety

Graber

Grice

Ling

et al. 2019

The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, and the Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education frame patient safety from the perspective of medication management, which is also the current focus of pharmacy education and training. With the growing appreciation that diagnostic errors represent an urgent and actionable patient safety concern, the National Academy of Medicine has recommended diagnostic safety training for all health care professions. The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine has worked with an interprofessional consensus group to identify a set of 12 key competencies necessary to achieve diagnostic quality and safety that focuses on individual, team-based, and system-related competencies. Much of this already exists in pharmacy education, but pharmacy training programs need to give graduates more guidance on how they contribute to the diagnostic process and the prevention and detection of diagnostic errors. We describe the current state of progress in this regard, and what steps are needed by training programs to provide content and assessment so that graduates achieve the requisite competencies. Governing and advisory bodies need to expand the expectations around patient safety to include diagnostic safety.